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2×4 Craft Storage Shelving

When I finished my craft nook, I had to figure out something for my ribbon. If I needed a certain color, I would have to go through all the spools in plastic tubs to find it, and that meant I probably wouldn’t do it. I thought about making some type of shelving system above the crafting bench, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to drill into the concrete anymore than I had to. There was all this space on one wall that I had no idea what I was going to do with, so I got to thinking. It basically was just an area to store larger wood pieces for the time being.

So I decided to fix it up and turn the area into shelves. The previous owners left it unfinished with the 2×4 framework exposed. I thought about sheetrocking it but decided to do this instead. First, I primed & painted the 2×4’s the same color as the concrete walls in the rest of my workspace (Behr’s Raffia Cream).

Once I got through with the painting, next came the tedious and time consuming process of drilling the shelf pin holes. I used my Kreg shelf pin drilling jig for that. I ran into a slight kink though; apparently some of the boards were not straight and square, so the shelf pin holes didn’t always line up. I had to re-drill some of the holes after measuring, but I found a way around it. It was also time consuming because I drilled a LOT of holes because I wanted it to be versatile so I could have just a few shelves for larger items or many, many shelves if the items weren’t that tall. I like the idea of adjustable shelves because it’s not permanent, in case I change my mind about what to store in this area one day. I used 1/2″ x 4″ hobby boards (which are just 3 1/2″ wide) for the shelves. I went with hobby boards because they were most likely going to be straight because they are stored flat and not upright. I cut them the length I needed and painted them Raffia Cream as well.

I couldn’t use my Kreg jig for the far left section because it was only a 10″ area between the 2×4’s, so I couldn’t get the drill in between those pieces. For that part, I used 1/2″ x 1/2″ pieces of wood as shelf supports (attached with my brad nailer at an angle), and then I used 1/4″ x 1 1/2″ hobby wood pieces for the front part so the ribbon wouldn’t roll off the shelf, also attached with my Ryobi airstrike brad nailer.

The last thing was the backing. I was going to use a piece of paneling that wasn’t ideal, but Home Depot didn’t have the panel I originally wanted in stock when I went to get it. And then I saw this flimsy-feeling plastic 4×8-foot piece of paneling and knew it was perfect! It’s 1/16″ thick plastic paneling (here’s the link to the product), and the best thing for me? I can cut it with scissors! I didn’t have to drag out my circular saw. Of course, it was a pain in the ass working with it alone because it was flimsy due to the thickness and size of the piece, but I managed thanks to my clamps. This is what it looks like completed.

The space behind the 2×4’s serves mainly as our storage area and also holds are air conditioning/furnace unit and hot water heater. I really like how this cleaned up the look. You can’t see all of that stuff when you walk into my work area now. I left the middle section open for now just in case. You can access the storage room from the other side, but I was hesitant to close this up completely for now.

Here’s a closer look at the finished ribbon shelving.

I finished this in June of last year, and I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on it since then. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to store all my ribbon, miscellaneous crafting supplies, and the multitude of paint samples we bought in May of last year when trying to decide what colors to go with in the two bedrooms, hallway, and dining room.